Waterfall

Okay, here's some great advice to live by--don't do stupid things. And, if you find yourself in a situation where you are about to do something stupid and perhaps painful, there's probably a way out of it, so keep your eyes open and don't start panicking. Yes, I am now the voice of experience.

And by now you're thinking, "Are you going to tell the story that you obviously came here to tell already?" So, yes, now I will tell the story. Last week, my singles branch made a trip to Yellowstone National Park. That was tons of fun and all, but that's not what this story is about. This story takes place on the trip home from said trip to Yellowstone.

I was riding in a car with three other girls and the driver of our car, along with two other cars, wanted to stop at Lava Hot Springs on our way out of Idaho. I wasn't thrilled about making the stop, but our dear sweet driver didn't give us a choice in the matter. So when we got into Lava we were presented with options. I love options! We could either go soak in a hot-pot or we could rent and inner tube and float down the river. I chose to make the river excursion with about five other people from my branch.

After we rented our tubes, we walked down this shady little dirt path down to the top of the river. We all climbed carefully onto the sharp rocks of the riverbed and waded around the corner where we found a waterfall. At first we were all afraid of it and we figured we must be in the wrong place, but then another group came in behind us and explained that this waterfall was perfectly safe. "This is the easy one," they told us. "It's the other one you want to worry about." But even with this cheery reassurance we weren't convinced of the safety of this activity, so we got out, walked up the dirt path again, and found a place to enter the water on the other side of the falls. We all got on our tubes and had a grand old time floating on the water ... for about a minute and a half. It didn't take us long to notice the loud crashing of water coming from the river before us. Then we were pulled into a strong current, and I was separated from my friends. We rounded another bend and then we saw the falls. They didn't look too deadly, but the warning from the guys at the first set of falls was still fresh in our minds. These were the falls we needed to worry about. Oops.

As we moved with the current toward the falls, fear struck our hearts when we saw the people in front of us tacking the drop-off. Actually, it was more like the drop-off was tackling them. Not one person made it over the falls without falling off of their inner tube. I watched as one and then two of my friends biffed it over the falls, and I swallowed back a scream of terror. But then, I looked ahead of me and realized that I had bigger things to worry about. Now, let me explain how the waterfall worked out. There were two sides, the inside and the outside. The outside was where you wanted to be if you wanted to, you know, live to tell the tale. It wasn't as steep or sharp as the inside, which was about a five-foot straight drop-off into a patch of shallow water lined with porous (aka sharp) rocks.

My inner tube had been pulled into the inside current of the river. I watched in terror as a person on the river in front of me took my destined route and tumbled over the ledge. My eyes widened as I watched him fall. Then my tube spun in the water, and I reached the edge of the waterfall. I tumbled backwards off of my tube, and poor skin met with the unforgiving rocks on the other side. Then I was pulled under the water of a kind of whirlpool. I panicked. My body was still in shock from falling off of the waterfall, but as if that wasn't enough, I was now trapped under water, and my back was searing in pain. As I was pulled by the water, I started imagining what my back must look like, and I can tell you that my imagination was not kind.

Finally I was able to get my head above the water, and I gasped both with the need of air and the shock of the pain when my skin touch the air. I made the mistake of glancing down at my shoulder, and I about passed out. Okay, it wasn't really that bad of an injury, but if that kind of scratch was marring my back, I was in big trouble.

I pushed the thoughts of pain and injuries out of my head temporarily to look around for the shoe that had slipped out of my hand during my tumble off of the waterfall. I also needed to locate my inner tube again. I was lucky enough to have a kind soul point out my shoe that was drifting past me, and I jumped for it. And I saw my tube spinning around in the same whirlpool I had been caught in earlier. I struggled through the suddenly-deep water and finally got the tube back. Now I just had to find my friends and assess the damage to my skin. Oh joy.

The assessment probably shouldn't have been the scary part of this situation, but my best friend is, shall we say, squeamish. i didn't really want her to throw up of faint at the sight of my back (plus I didn't want all the other people in the river to see it either) so I kept as low in the water as I could until I found my best friend again. She quickly assured me that my shoulder had the worst injury, and that I would live to swim another day.

I was relived that I wasn't going to die, but I was not excited about the mile and a half we still had to float down the river. I have never in my life been more frightened of four feet of water. But I made it without further incident, and after a few minutes, my fear dissipated and I was able to enjoy myself again.

Alright, now you're thinking, "That's terrific, but what does it have to do with the nice long monologue you gave at the beginning of this blog about not doing stupid things? Seems to me like you've just been rambling."

And so, to answer that question, I will tell you about the realization I had the next day. As I thought about how scary it was to fall over the waterfall, it occurred to me that the water at the top of the falls was probably only six inches deep at most. So, really, I could have gotten off of the tube at any time and avoided the whole issue. But instead I was so focused on surviving the fall that I didn't realize I could have prevented it.

Is there a moral to this story? Probably. Do I want to spell it out for you completely? No, not really. But it's all there, and you have take a valuable life-lesson out of it if you'd like.

Have a great day!

PS My back is healing up very nicely, thank you. Oh, and as a side note, always remember to look at the ingredients of any soothing ointment you put on freshly torn-up skin: it may contain alcohol.

Pong

Okay, so here's the deal. I know it's absolutely pathetic, but I have to make a confession: I have weak ankles. Do you remember the part in Disney's Hercules when Meg sticks her foot in Herc's face and says, "Do you have any problems with things like this? Weak ankles, I mean." Yeah, that's totally me, except I do that in a completely non-flirtatious, "Hey everybody look at that idiot over there," kind of way.

Here's the story. So, two months ago (that's May, for those of you keeping track) I went to the Hart Gym with two of my roommates and our FHE brother to play some sports and get away from our apartments. We get there and can't decide what sport we want to play, and after an intense discussion in which no working-out was accomplished, we decided to take the easy way out and play ping-pong. Completely safe and harmless, right?

Ha. That's a good one.

I am usually a decent ping-pong player, but that night was, well, not a good one for me and that particular game. We played for a long time, and I lost repeatedly. Things were not looking good for me: I should have taken this for a sign.

And then, one of my friends smacked the ball as hard and far as they possibly could, sending it clear across the HUGE gym we were playing in. And I, being the kind-hearted person that I typically am, went after it. Then, disaster struck.

I wish this was some dramatic moment when I had been hit in the head with a runaway basketball and fell right into the open and welcoming arms of my true love, but it wasn't. Nope, I crouched down to retrieve the ball all too quickly, twisted my ankle into an extremely uncomfortable position, and collapsed onto the cold, non-prince-charming floor of the gym. Perfect.

But I shake it off, right, because that's what you're supposed to do when you fall down. I grabbed the ball and ran back to my game, laughing about my stupidity and trying to hide the great amount of pain I was in.

When I got back to my friends, my ankle hurt so much that I couldn't stand on it anymore. Now, you've gotta understand that I usually turn my ankles at least once in any sport that I play, but it hadn't hurt this much in a very long time. I sat on the floor and started rotating it, but even that killed!

When my roomies were finished playing, I limped home with them and thought nothing about my injured ankle expect for a hope that it would feel better in the morning. It didn't, but I didn't pay attention to it, and eventually I forgot I'd hurt it.

But now to the main point of the story. It is now July (two months later, just so we're clear) and my ankle hurts like the dickens! (and I can totally say that because I'm an English major) I have never had this much pain in my ankle. And the worst part is that I can't just ignore it like I usually do, because it won't go away and it just keeps getting more painful by the day! Grah!

It's wrapped and all that jazz, but it hurts to walk on or move in any direction. It's not swollen or anything like that, but it's definitely bugging the heck out of me.

Does anybody have any miracle cures for a twisted ankle? Or perhaps a better story for me to tell than, "I twisted my ankle playing the dangers and sometimes fatal sport of ping-pong." I mean, who's going to take me seriously now?

Great Day!

So, I know it's only 7:45 a.m., but I just have to write and say that I am having a surprisingly good day so far. Nothing spectacular has happened to me or anything like that, but I just feel really happy for no good reason. I mean, I woke up twenty minutes earlier than I normally do, putting me twenty minutes ahead of schedule so I have time to do stuff like eat breakfast and blog like I never get to do.

Oh, I almost forgot, I've got another great book reccommendation, well, it's acutally two books, but they're by the same author so this totally counts. Alright the first book is called The Icing on the Cake. This book is adorable, unpredictable, and absolutely hilarious! A must-read if you love to laugh. Elodia Strain's second book, Previously Engaged, is equally funny, and both are terriffic books!

Pre-Finals Jitters

So here we are at the end of another wonderful semester at BYU-Idaho, and with that comes and of the joys of freedom and all of the bondage of finals. Oh goody. Well, technically finals aren't until next week, however pre-finals week is sometimes worse than the actual finals week because of all of the hype. That's right, hype.

Professors are the worst, you know that? They have this fantastic way of making your freak out about your grades and your GPA and your life and your future and the future success of every venture you'll ever make in your whole life because everything in the world rides on this test! AAaah!

Talk about pressure.

Plus there's the question of what the heck am I going to do after the semester ends? I'll move home and completelly jobless and boyless. Not that I have any boys to speak of at the moment, but there will be considerably less boys back at home.

Let the stressing begin!

Oh, lets not forget to mention the fact that I've just recently submitted my manuscript to a new place and they should get back to me within a month or so. *gulp* I hate waiting on pins and needles, but that's what I get for wanting to be an author.

What kind of stupid decision was that for someone slightly impatient?

Code Of Honor

Just an update from my last post about Besty Brannon Green's book Code of Honor. That book was absolutely incredible. I finished it in a day and a half, and I could think of absolutely nothing else until I had finished reading it! Amazing!! But now the problem is that I am still obsessed with Dane and Savannah and can't get out of their world. I guess it'll take a few days to adjust back to my normal non-military-affiliated life. *sigh*
Oh well, now I guess I'll just have to focus all of my literary excitement toward my own novels which are severely lacking in the attention department. I've got some great ideas, now I just need to make time to write them all down.

Great Book!

So one of my all-time favorite authors, Betsy Brannon Green, just came out with her final installment in her Hazardous Duty trilogy. Actually, it came out about a month ago, and I'm just barely getting to it. I feel all anxious and antsy about that, but what can I do? Schoolwork trumps all. Apparently.
Anywho, my dear sweet friend ordered me to read the first two books again before I read the final book, Code of Honor. I agreed, but little did I know how much this would torture me. My goodness. It didn't help that I started this series at the same time was I was reading three other novels--and this is just the 'for fun' stuff, not even counting the stuff I have to read for school. I didn't get to start Hazardous Duty again until last week, and even then I didn't get to spend lots of time with it because of visiting friends and school and whatnot. So, in summary, I just finished reading Hazardous Duty for the second time. Oh my goodness. I just have to say that Besty Brannon Green is an amazing author, and I am going absolutely crazy because I want to start Above and Beyond as soon as possible, but I can't. Drat that schoolwork!!
So, in short, Betsy Brannon Green is amazing and everyone should read her books. So good! I am so anxious to finish the series because I want my happy ending, darn it!!!
It's a good things we have an ultra long weekend coming up or I might just go crazy, and/or ditch my schoolwork completely. I may end up doing that anyway.
... I totally shouldn't read books for fun during the school year. Lame sauce.

Submitting

Tomorrow is a day that will create a great deal of stress in my life--again. Yes, that's right, I'm going to be emailing a query letter of sorts to an agent tomorrow, and well, frankly I'm petrified. Don't get me wrong, I've communicated with this woman before and she if very nice and professional, it's just the idea of waiting on hot coals that makes me a little ... anxious.
I know, whichever way the fates turn the tables, I will live to write another day. However, that does not alleviate any of the stress of the 'waiting for rejection' process. I have a back-up plan, of course, but that doesn't make this period of standing around, twiddling my thumbs any more fun.
*sigh*
Here we go again.